Which amount of Soulstones should we use for this weird 3vs3 format?

[Baskakov_Dmitriy]

The basic rules are:

1. Unless stated otherwise, normal Malifaux rules and Gaining Grounds 2018 are used, as well as common sense.
2. The players in each round are divided in two Teams, 3 players in each.
3. Each player declares their own faction and hires their own crew under normal rules, but rarity (Rare N models) has to be followed for the whole side, not just for each crew. 
4. The Crew Size is determined by the TO.
5. Masters are all considered to be Rare 1 for the purposes of hiring crews (there cannot be two equal masters on the same side). 
6. One player in each Team is a Captain. The Captain decides everything for the Team if the Team can't make up a choice. 
7. Each player has their own Fate Deck, control hand and Soulstone cache. 
8. Each player controls their models themself, doing all the flips, cheating Fate, etc. 
9. Players in one Team are allowed to reveal their control hand to their allies, but every discussion is to be made openly and in the language that the other Team can fully understand. 
10. For the purposes of Schemes, Strategy, Abilities, Actions and Triggers, all the models in your Team (including the models in the friendly crews) are considered friendly models or models in your crew, all the models in the enemy Team are considered enemy models or models in the opposing crew.
11. The Captain has to appoint a player to flip Initiative and Deployment order each time those flips are done. The Captain decides which side deploys and activated first.
12. The Teams take turns activating their models, choosing a player to activate a model each time. For example, Player 1 in Team Blue activates, then it's Player 2 in Team Red turn to activate, then Player 1 in Team Blue can activate a different model, or Player 2 in Team Blue can activate.
13. Effects that cause Chain Activation (like Accomplice or Companion) can be used to Chain Activate a model of another player in the same Team. 
14. The Captain chooses which Crew Leader is accounted as the Leader for the purposes of Schemes and Strategy at the beginning of the game.
15. When a player would do an action as required by the Scheme or Strategy (like placing Symbols of Authority), a Team Leader (the Captain) does it instead. 

I have tried it today, the game size was Henchman Hardcore with only 2 players per side, and it was much fun, even though my ally and me have made some mistakes that made us lose.  The last one was the following. My friend has used Obey on my Howard Langston to finish the enemy Leader: the enemy Snow Storm only had 2 Wounds, no Soulstones, and Langston would likely die soon (it actually happened soon). The Obey has led to a successful strike with one negative flip, and I have asked my friend to Cheat Fate for it to be a clear flip in case of a Black Joker being there. He said: "If a Black Joker comes, it's our Fate!". And the Black Joker came as the second card, the one he would  have missed if he had cheated.  Indeed, "Cheat your Fate or lose your Soul". 

However, even with only 20 SS/player+Leader and just 2 players per side, it was kind of a mess, even though the fun kind of a mess. Perhaps it was due to us being new to the thing,  one player on the other side kind of new to Malifaux at all, and not being prepared for that (we used out regular HH crews), but still. I presume that it would be an even bigger mess with 35 SS per Crew, and cannot even imagine what would happen with three 50 SS Crew. 

So, which amount of SS seems reasonable for this N vs. N format? 

[Ludvig]

It depends on how quick you want matches to be. The standard tournament time of a little over two hours would probably not be nearly enough even if you just did 25 ss per player. Apart from being a lot of models there will be combos and interactions that no one is used to. I think you would need to clock a few games at different ss levels but I would assume each side should not have more than 25-30ss even with an expanded round time of 3+ hours.

It looks like a fun and ambitious format. It's always fun to get to try strange interactions thst aren't normally allowed.

[Adran]

UK often do doubles, of 2* 25 ss crews each lead by a master which share 1 hand between them, and they take only a little longer than a single game, (mainly due to teammate "interaction and discussion"(aka arguing) deciding on how to use the cards). Giving each player their own hand probably makes the game longer though as there will be more cheating. Also the more masters that you have, the more outragous the combinations will get. I think the states do doubles without shared hands, but I'm not sure what times they use. 

In answer to your question, any size should work, its going to be a crazy format how ever you do it.

And one thing that you might need to be careful of, is that reading this, to me the best way to win is for the whole team to focus on 1 enemy crew and remove it ASAP, because you are then removing 6 control cards from the opponents. That does sound unfun for the person removed though.